Fall is in the air here in Dunwoody Georgia. Yesterday we started our first of many afternoons raking up leaves. Ann had a blast trudging through them once they were piled neatly in a row. We have been reading Winny The Poo to her at night and in one of the stories they are raking leaves. She is pretending to be Tigger by bouncing into the leaves and then throwing them up in the air. It is really fun to watch her play and interact with things now. She has such a great imagination. She is a good helper too. She has a yellow plastic rake which she was using to gather up leaves. Unfortunately she found it was easier to rake the leaves out of the pile I had just made rather than making a pile of her own! But all in all it was a fun day. The leaves are starting to get beautiful around here. Lots of reds, yellows, and orange.

Sick of seeing "Click here to enable Instant Search" in Outlook?Here is how to get rid of it.In Outlook click Tools and then Options.Click on the tab labeled "Other"Click on Advanced Options.Uncheck the box that says Show prompts to enable Instant Search.

I had a picture as a buddy icon and wanted to change it to reflect the change in the season but whenever I went to change it, it would go back to the old picture. I was able to turn it off but whenever I chose a new picture it would again go back to the old one. Here is what I did to fix that.Navigate to C:\program files\trillian\default and look for a file called buddyicon. This won't be the actual buddy icon but rather a file called buddyicon. Right click on the file and click on properties. Un-check the read only box and click ok. You will now be able to change your buddy icon.

Today comes a new dawn for search engines with the first-ever Beta launch of 'Dynamic URL Rewriting' in Site Explorer. The new feature provides the ability for site owners to alert Yahoo! of the dynamic parameters in URLs that they'd like Yahoo! to ignore, which we'll then automatically rewrite accordingly. Try this out for all the cases where you'd want to use parameters in your URLs that don't affect the content of your page, but that have other important uses.

I received a notice that there was a software update available for iTunes and when installing it I happened to glance at the license agreement. Well I in bold letters was the following statement:The apple software is not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, life support machines or other equipment in which the failure of the apple software could lead to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage.Ummm, why is that included? Was there some Homer Simpson guy working at a nuclear power plant that figured instead of using NRC Regulatory software I'll put Itunes on there and then I can listen to music too. And life support machines? I mean come on! Two senarios would seem to lead to this kind of language. Fist (and this is the one that I am hoping is the case) there is a group of Legal Eagles trying to think up every conceivable situation however asinine that the softwa…

Relying on the network of sites which are displaying your Google paid listing can be counterproductive. Google touts the ability to read the text on the page and distinguish between coffee, programming and location when typing in Java however below is an example of an X-Cart ad showing up on a page that describes a vulnerability in the software which allows your site to get hacked.

I was wondering when this wold happen. With a growing amount of TiVo, DVR and online viewing of tv-shows it is getting easier to skip commercials.

In a bold move to narrow the large revenue gap with Univision, competitor Telemundo will air a drama series with no commercials, just brand integration. Airing on weeknights in late-fringe (7 p.m.-8 p.m.), "Idolos de Juventud" is more accurately a telenovela--the dramatic form of weeknight strip programming popular in the Hispanic community. Brand integration will come in each episode, but no ad breaks, when it debuts this summer. The tactic intriguingly intersects with a slew of industry issues, such as commercial ratings, the value of product placement and DVRs. Without ads, Telemundo presumably won't have to worry about the tricky aspects of negotiating based on commercial ratings. The content would be "DVR-proof"--there would be no worries about viewers fast-forwarding through the ads. The value of product plac…

I liked the layout of the zoo better than the layout at Zoo Atlanta (where we are members). It seemed you get closer to the animals in Memphis. Especially the giraffes. (Giraffa camelopardalis) The polar bears were great too but I thought the American Bald Eagle exhibit was too small. They were not able to fly around. The aquarium was small but I am used to the one here in Atlanta which is awesome!Congratulations to Michelle and Andy R. on their marriage!

Unwanted Word Crop MarksGot a note from a client today wondering why some, but not all, of their Word 2002 installations show these crop marks (circled in red) while in Print View, even when the Tools > Options > View > Print and Web Layout options > Text boundaries option is turned off. A quick check with the Google Gods turned up this answer, courtesy of Suzanne S. Barnhill, a Microsoft MVP.Turns out that if Asian language support is enabled using the Microsoft Office XP Language Settings tool, found on the Start > Programs > Microsoft Office Tools menu, these bothersome little corner marks are always present. A quick check on my own system proved Ms. Barnhill to be right on the money. Big thanks to Ms. Barnhill

All of a sudden I stopped seeing e-mail on my sidebar from Google. The mail comes from an exchange server so I didn't think there was anything on my machine that was causing the problem.I tried to remove the gadget and ad it back in. I rebooted my computer. Closed and opened outlook all to no avail. I was getting ready to remove the google desktop when I found this post:http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=30817&topic=1586

I followed these directions and my sidebar works again! I must have un-checked that at some point when I was poking around Outlook. I was trying to reduce the load on the memory and Outlook seemed to be a bit of a hog so I started flipping switches! Oops!